Hacker News Reader

Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

>Why are Google, Microsoft and Apple so inactive here?

They did by adding push notifications to their browsers.

RSS seems pointless to use now that web push notifications and twitter exist. Twitter solves the scaling problem where you are subscribed to too many things. It has an algorithm to sort your feed so you don't have to waste time scrolling past uninteresting articles from people you've followed if you are following a ton of different content creators.

View on HN

Twitter is a single, centralised source where RSS is decentralised - everyone and his dog can provide a feed which can be followed by the world. No censorship, no dirty tricks with algorithms between you and your audience, no BigTech Beasts™ feeding on your data. In other words, RSS is clearly the superior solution both for source as well as subscribers. Twitter et al might not like this but... who cares?

Most people aren't going to be subscribing to things that break twitter's tos and if they do there is still push notifications and other platforms willing to platform that kind of content.

Completely outsourcing your process for surfacing interesting information to someone else's algorithm feels like awful idea (and I actually mostly like Twitter).

Push notifications being ethereal and unscheduled make for a pretty different content consumption experience; not one I want.

Reading RSS feeds is like sitting down to read a pile of newspapers. Perhaps another activity that people don't really do any more, but should.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com